“Indonesia owes a great debt of gratitude to her students, past and present. Students of the so-called Generation of ’45 helped Indonesia to win her independence. Students of what is styled the Generation of ’66 aided in the defeat of the Communists and the coming into being of the New Order. Students of the 1970s and 1980s have been or will be preparing to play their role in Indonesia’s national development.” (From ‘Emerging Indonesia’ by Donald Wilhelm, 1980.)
This makes me think about my genertion, the Generation of the 2000s, the first century of the new millenium, what will be my service to my country? The Generation of the 1990s has just finished their calling. Now, history is looking and waiting at us. If somebody writes another book again about the life and the contribution of Indonesian students in the 2000s, what would they be? Benjamin Franklin often credited with this saying, “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” Hm, the pen is in our hands now, what would we write in the History?
21 September 2003
astonished!!!
“When you look at the matter objectively, it is astonishing that the world’s fifth most populous country (after mainland China, India, the Soviet Union, and the United States) should be so little known in the West. The country’s population exceeds 140 million, and her horizontal geographical spread is greater than that of the USA. Her 13,667 islands – ranging from tiny atolls to island giants of 100,000 square miles and more – make her the world’s largets archipelago. She possesses rich and varied human and natural resources together with remarkable cultural diversity. The charm of her people blends with their tropical environment in never-to-be-forgotten fashion. She is Indonesia.” (Preface of ‘Emerging Indonesia’ by Donald Wilhelm, 1980)
I was pretty flattered reading that paragraph at first however looking at it more critically had humbled me instead. I looked at his astonishment from two sides, with the pop psychology ‘is the glass half empty or half full’ question. What it is that is so ‘astonishing’ about Indonesia and all the great potentials in her that she ‘should be so little known in the West’? First he could just mean that the West should have paid more attention to Indonesia then they have been. But with a heart of self-introspection, he could also mean that the Indonesian people should have done more thant have been. What have we done to her to be so little known? It is not the responsibilty of the ‘West’ to know her, but it is my job to make her known. 23 years past since Wilhelm published the book, I am just wondering what have changed and what have not?
I was pretty flattered reading that paragraph at first however looking at it more critically had humbled me instead. I looked at his astonishment from two sides, with the pop psychology ‘is the glass half empty or half full’ question. What it is that is so ‘astonishing’ about Indonesia and all the great potentials in her that she ‘should be so little known in the West’? First he could just mean that the West should have paid more attention to Indonesia then they have been. But with a heart of self-introspection, he could also mean that the Indonesian people should have done more thant have been. What have we done to her to be so little known? It is not the responsibilty of the ‘West’ to know her, but it is my job to make her known. 23 years past since Wilhelm published the book, I am just wondering what have changed and what have not?
12 September 2003
time space
Pete,
I came across an interesting article from the local paper (Tom Burns, ‘The Joy of Skywatching’, Columbus Dispatch, Sept 9, 2003) about Mars sighting this month. But what gauges me in is his writing about the Andromeda Galaxy or M31. It is the farthest extraterrestial object our eyes can see, and the light from the galaxy needs 3 million years to reach us here and through a distance of roughly 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles. The galaxy itself is 150000 light years wide (or 900,000,000,000,000 miles) and contains 300,000,000,000 stars. Okay, take some time to digest all the zeroes before we continue. Moreover, he says, one edge of the galaxy is 900,000 trillion miles closer to us and it is 100, 000 years earlier from the farther edge, and yet we perceive it as one object. This is astounding Pete! It means that when we look at the galaxy we are actually looking at the past, present, and future all together at once. All the conventional time frame as we know in our everyday term, collapses into one. “In essence,” he said, “M31 is stretched out in space, but it’s also stretched out in time.” This is a fact and it is just as real as everything we know and see everyday. Can you imagine if you are looking at someone with both his young and old face altogether at once? Perplexed? Not so for one person.
This phenomenom of our world reminds me of the same thought Augustine, a young monk from North Africa, had 1400 years ago. In 397 A.D., without the benefit of modern sciences and tools, he wrote in his autobiography ‘Confessions’ the same perplexing question we ask today,
“What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled. All the same I can confidently say that I know that if nothing passed, there would be no past time; if nothing were going to happen, there would be no future time; and if nothing were, there would be no present time. Of these three division of time, then, how can two, the past and the future, be, when the past no longer is and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become past , it would not be time but eternity. If, therefore, the present is time only by reason of the fact that it moves on to become the past, how can we say that even the present is, when the reason why it is is that it is no to be? In other words, we cannot rightly say that time is, except by reason of its impeding state of not being. (Confessions, XI, 14)
Augustine went on deeper in his quest and he even predicted accurately what the modern science fueled by Einstein general relativity theory would say about time and space 1400 years later. I mentioned earlier that when we look at M31, we are actually looking at both the past and future. This is also what Augustine miraculously infered in the last sentence of the following quote:
“If the future and the past do exist, I want to know where they are . I may not yet be capable of such knowledge, but at least I know that wherever they are, they are not there as future or past, but as present. For if, wherever they are, they are future, they do not yet exist; if past, they no longer exist . So whereever they are and whatever they are, it is only by being that they are.” (Confessions, XI, 18)
We can go on and on exploring and amazed by this time-space issue but Tom Burns is right, “Don't despair, my brother and sister stargazers”, lets just enjoy the beautiful night sky this month with neighbor Mars. Have fun!
I came across an interesting article from the local paper (Tom Burns, ‘The Joy of Skywatching’, Columbus Dispatch, Sept 9, 2003) about Mars sighting this month. But what gauges me in is his writing about the Andromeda Galaxy or M31. It is the farthest extraterrestial object our eyes can see, and the light from the galaxy needs 3 million years to reach us here and through a distance of roughly 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles. The galaxy itself is 150000 light years wide (or 900,000,000,000,000 miles) and contains 300,000,000,000 stars. Okay, take some time to digest all the zeroes before we continue. Moreover, he says, one edge of the galaxy is 900,000 trillion miles closer to us and it is 100, 000 years earlier from the farther edge, and yet we perceive it as one object. This is astounding Pete! It means that when we look at the galaxy we are actually looking at the past, present, and future all together at once. All the conventional time frame as we know in our everyday term, collapses into one. “In essence,” he said, “M31 is stretched out in space, but it’s also stretched out in time.” This is a fact and it is just as real as everything we know and see everyday. Can you imagine if you are looking at someone with both his young and old face altogether at once? Perplexed? Not so for one person.
This phenomenom of our world reminds me of the same thought Augustine, a young monk from North Africa, had 1400 years ago. In 397 A.D., without the benefit of modern sciences and tools, he wrote in his autobiography ‘Confessions’ the same perplexing question we ask today,
“What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled. All the same I can confidently say that I know that if nothing passed, there would be no past time; if nothing were going to happen, there would be no future time; and if nothing were, there would be no present time. Of these three division of time, then, how can two, the past and the future, be, when the past no longer is and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become past , it would not be time but eternity. If, therefore, the present is time only by reason of the fact that it moves on to become the past, how can we say that even the present is, when the reason why it is is that it is no to be? In other words, we cannot rightly say that time is, except by reason of its impeding state of not being. (Confessions, XI, 14)
Augustine went on deeper in his quest and he even predicted accurately what the modern science fueled by Einstein general relativity theory would say about time and space 1400 years later. I mentioned earlier that when we look at M31, we are actually looking at both the past and future. This is also what Augustine miraculously infered in the last sentence of the following quote:
“If the future and the past do exist, I want to know where they are . I may not yet be capable of such knowledge, but at least I know that wherever they are, they are not there as future or past, but as present. For if, wherever they are, they are future, they do not yet exist; if past, they no longer exist . So whereever they are and whatever they are, it is only by being that they are.” (Confessions, XI, 18)
We can go on and on exploring and amazed by this time-space issue but Tom Burns is right, “Don't despair, my brother and sister stargazers”, lets just enjoy the beautiful night sky this month with neighbor Mars. Have fun!
11 September 2003
Tuesday, September 9, 2003
NEWS - SCIENCE 07A
By Tom Burns
For The Columbus Dispatch
As Mars continues to brighten our evening sky, it's easy for an old stargazer to get a bit cynical.
Good views of Mars are rare, and we've waited 15 years to see the Red Planet this well. However, some purveyors of popular astronomical knowledge just can't help themselves. Mars, they say, hasn't been this good for 50,000 years -- or is it 60,000?
Of course, that number represents one of those spectacular but meaningless truths that Americans gobble down like french fries. Mars is essentially as close as it was in 1988 or 1971. The real news is that you'll have to wait more than a decade to see it this well again.
People rush to public stargazing sessions expecting to see plumes from Martian volcanoes, but they will be disappointed. Mars looks like a red dot with a white polar cap and green markings on its surface.
The amazing thing is that we can see anything at all.
Don't despair, my brother and sister stargazers. The sky is full of wonders that we can see all the time. One such is the Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, the farthest object that the unaided human eye can see.
Look for it around 10 p.m. in the constellation Andromeda, low in the east-northeast sky. Binoculars will show it as a hazy, cigar-shaped patch. The light you are looking at took 3 million years to travel to your eyeballs. (One light year is 5.9 trillion miles.)
At 150,000 light years across its disc, M31 is a galaxy even larger than our Milky Way. Looking a bit like a child's pinwheel tilted halfway on its side, Andromeda contains more than 300 billion stars in a flattened disc with a bulge in its center.
Because of the way the galaxy is tilted -- at about a 45-degree angle from our vantage -- the closer edge is about 100,000 light years closer than the farther edge. We see the light from the leading edge 100,000 years earlier than the more distant edge.
In essence, M31 is stretched out in space, but it's also stretched out in time.
In a telescope we can distinguish its central bulge, and in larger telescopes even pretend to trace out the spiral arms that arc out from the bulge. But all of that is irrelevant. If you want to see intricate detail in a telescope, go buy a spotting scope and take up bird watching.
The joy in seeing Mars is just seeing it. The joy in gazing at Andromeda is knowing that you are looking at the farthest thing that human eyes can behold.
Tom Burns directs Ohio Wesleyan University's Perkins Observatory in Delaware.
NEWS - SCIENCE 07A
By Tom Burns
For The Columbus Dispatch
As Mars continues to brighten our evening sky, it's easy for an old stargazer to get a bit cynical.
Good views of Mars are rare, and we've waited 15 years to see the Red Planet this well. However, some purveyors of popular astronomical knowledge just can't help themselves. Mars, they say, hasn't been this good for 50,000 years -- or is it 60,000?
Of course, that number represents one of those spectacular but meaningless truths that Americans gobble down like french fries. Mars is essentially as close as it was in 1988 or 1971. The real news is that you'll have to wait more than a decade to see it this well again.
People rush to public stargazing sessions expecting to see plumes from Martian volcanoes, but they will be disappointed. Mars looks like a red dot with a white polar cap and green markings on its surface.
The amazing thing is that we can see anything at all.
Don't despair, my brother and sister stargazers. The sky is full of wonders that we can see all the time. One such is the Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, the farthest object that the unaided human eye can see.
Look for it around 10 p.m. in the constellation Andromeda, low in the east-northeast sky. Binoculars will show it as a hazy, cigar-shaped patch. The light you are looking at took 3 million years to travel to your eyeballs. (One light year is 5.9 trillion miles.)
At 150,000 light years across its disc, M31 is a galaxy even larger than our Milky Way. Looking a bit like a child's pinwheel tilted halfway on its side, Andromeda contains more than 300 billion stars in a flattened disc with a bulge in its center.
Because of the way the galaxy is tilted -- at about a 45-degree angle from our vantage -- the closer edge is about 100,000 light years closer than the farther edge. We see the light from the leading edge 100,000 years earlier than the more distant edge.
In essence, M31 is stretched out in space, but it's also stretched out in time.
In a telescope we can distinguish its central bulge, and in larger telescopes even pretend to trace out the spiral arms that arc out from the bulge. But all of that is irrelevant. If you want to see intricate detail in a telescope, go buy a spotting scope and take up bird watching.
The joy in seeing Mars is just seeing it. The joy in gazing at Andromeda is knowing that you are looking at the farthest thing that human eyes can behold.
Tom Burns directs Ohio Wesleyan University's Perkins Observatory in Delaware.
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